TMC men's soccer headed to GSAC Tourney finals

Mustangs top Westmont in shootout

The Master's College men's soccer team is headed to the Golden State Athletic Conference Tournament championship game.

But it did not come easy.

Scoreless through two halves and two overtime periods, the Mustangs converted on all five shootout opportunities and goalkeeper Kevin Lawson came up with a key save to lift TMC 1-0 over Westmont in the GSAC Tournament Semifinals on Saturday at Reese Field.

Lawson finished with five total saves on the day.

"His reputation, his MO has been that he saves PKs," said Mustangs head coach Jim Rickard. "In five shooters, on average he is going to save two of them and maybe force another one wide because he is intimidating them."

Jake Marchesani, Joel Peluffo, Andy Hegg, Guilherme Mitrovitch and Tyler Salvey all made penalty kicks for TMC (16-2-1), which will play Biola on Saturday at Reese Field for the GSAC Tournament title.

The Mustangs beat Biola 2-1 on Oct. 31 in a game that ultimately determined the GSAC champion.

Biola advanced to the finals with a 1-0 victory over Azusa Pacific on Saturday.

A win in the tournament finals would give TMC an automatic bid to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Tournament.The opening round is Nov. 21.

However, Rickard said that given his team's No. 7 ranking in the NAIA, an at-large bid is likely should the Mustangs fall to Biola.

In Saturday's match with Westmont (9-7), TMC's Marcelo Sliva led the team with five total shots, Marchesani had three and Mitrovitch had two. Doug Armstrong, Cody Jenison, David Alegria, Marlon Lindo, Brian Gardner and Jon Roberts added one shot each.

"We just had a lot of good opportunities and didn't finish," Rickard said. "You just don't want to press for goal to the point of opening yourself up."

Westmont goalkeeper Matthew McNab had six saves and got two shots from Doug Harrell and Hugo Pizano.

The Mustangs out-shot Westmont 16-6, but only put one more on-goal.

Still, TMC had to stay sharp to contend with the Warriors' tall forwards.

"Every time they got a throw-in anywhere near (the goal), or a free kick, it was really stressful because they would pound it into our goalie," Rickard said.